condemned 2 Review

[DeeperRed]

 

Condemned 2

 

General Information

 

Genre

FPS/Survial Horror

 

Developer

Monolith Productions

 

Publisher

SEGA

 

Online

Yes 1-8

 

Release Date

March 12, 2008 US

April 4th, 2008 UK

March 13th, 2008 AUS

 

General Price

£40

 

ESRB Rating

18+

 

Learning Curve

25-30 Minutes

 

Players

1 offline 8 online

 

Multimedia

ScreenShots

 

Preview

Is the follow up the the original Condemned: Criminal Origins. Time has not treated Ethan well, who after the sharid of the first game is left homeless and acholic. After being remind of his fighting skills in a short training mission, he is then sent to the SCU to help find Vanhorn (A character from the first game) Though all is not as it seems as you go through this twisted tale.

 

Graphics

If someone asked me to show of the potential of the 360 graphically, I would get two games. PGR4 and this. I was overwhelmed by what was in front of me when I started the game. The environments are more detailed then any other FPS you will find. The Graffiti, the cracks and the way every room seems different from the last. The enemies are just as detailed as the environment, I will admit there are a few repeated enemies but since the game play is so fast and slick you don't really notice and there faces look so real when you hit on you feel like your actually hitting someone. The scenes when you see people with there limbs ripped off or there stomachs cut open you really want a sick bucket near you! With out spoiling anything I will say that the detail applied to the face of one returning character is so realistic its disturbing. The enemies are scary, towards the end of the game they get more f*cked up and gruesome looking, the detail applied to them makes them the ow so more terrifying. The filters where also a brilliant choice for this game setting a mood that will have you on the edge of you seat umping at every corner. Though these filters soe time cause it to be too dark, I did have to whack the brightness alto in the darker levels to make my way around also I think tat a torch is needed for every second of te game no matter how many lights there are around. The weapons are also extremely well done, you feel as if you actually holding it because it looks extremely life like also the reflections of the metal ones are perfect thanks to the dynamic lighting engine which also adds fear to the environment. Each weapon feels different compared the rest which is rare for an this type of game. This game defiantly has one of the best artistic direction up there with the likes of Bioshock. In every environment, the surrounding props fit it perfectly making it seem that much more real. Overall one the best looking Xbox 360 there is thought when it gets too dark it lets it down. 9.7

 

Sound

The sound in this game is so vital that playing muted would ruin much of the experience. Its music in the game is that of a slow, mind confusing pace. When walking through a dingy school or the museum the music in the background builds up so much tension and fear you consistently need to change your pants. The sound effects in the is game are second to none! Every punch comes with an eye pleasing crunch, when you hit someone with a wrench the crack of the skull and metal is both in unison makes you cringe every time. Each footstep is delivered with a heightened sound to add to the tension and especially when you stop walking and you still hear them getting louder! The whelps and screams delivered by the victims leave you feeling quite guilty till, But also the noises made by the enemies when they attack is just a fearful as the music. The voice acting in this game is brilliant as well, Ethan sounds rough, angry and f*cking crazy. very other characters voice fits there profile perfectly and there is emotion behind every line said. Overall the sound is this game is pretty much flawless though sometime is does glich not delivering a sound at the right time. 9.8

 

Gameplay

Unique. That is one way of describing it. At first the controls are quite daunting though a good tutorial helps and a with a few practices in the fight club arena and you'll be the next chuck norris. Fighting is very satisfying. Each weapon has its own animation and feel so I will describe the fists. R2= Right punch L2= Left punch Click Right thumbstick= Kick R2+L2= Block Click left thumb stick + R2/L2 = Hook seems simple enough, but there is loads of combination. And this is one FPS when if you aim high and kick you get the round house, aim for the middle and you get a stomach kick aim vertical down and you can stamp on there toe. There are all sorts of combos which are in the main menu for easy reading. Some of them, like disarm, nut cracker, Bum rush etc. With that there are special moves that can be pulled of when your combat bar is filled. These include arm breaking, head butting, rib beater etc. Along with those there are also environmental kills all over the place to dispose of you enemies. My personal favorite is the pressurised pump. The weapon themselves all feel different by this I mean it actually feels as if you have weight behind them. So the bowling ball feels a lot more brutal then say the metal pipe. The animations for each weapon is different which is a real nice touch because it feels much more unique. The weapon range goes from the average two by four to prosthetic arm to Battle axe to swan off shotguns. I ha vent counted but I would guess about 35+ different melee weapons, all with there own stats so you can chose which one suits you. The one annoying thing though realistic is that every weapon breaks after time, obviously some more then others but it is annoying when you get your most loved weapon (mine is the Battle Axe) and having it break after a few clashes. Though the melee combat is perfect the shootouts leave a lot to be desired. There is no duck, cover or jump button so the only real thin you can do with a gun is aim and prey the bullets don't hit you! Though the animation for the hits are perfect the shooting feels second class, it wasn't a problem with the first game because there was hardly any shooting at all but in this one whole level is just shooting, shooting and more shooting. Though I still love that leave because of the task you have to fill.

Movement has been raised in this game rom the last, its much easier to run around and get to places though gthe absence of a crouch and jump button still makes the game confusing at times, sometimes things can be crawled under or jumped over and sometimes things off the same height cannot, it does get annoying but not really that bad but it does amke the game feel a lot more linear. One mission when you are running round a small motel from a bear is a perfect example of how the controls are improved from the last.

The AI in this game is beyond other games! Its both clever and aggressive. Every enemy feels like a whole new challenge, they know when they need a heftier weapon they know when they need to run and hid and know when they need to hide wait for you to follow them then burst out at you.

The puzzles on this game really are unique. Unlike the first game which kind of held your hand. This one tells you what it wants to know and its up to you to get it. With a good selection of equipment at hand you will be able to figure it out. Rosa who is adding you on your quest will ask you to investigate a certain scene and ask you questions which you have to answer. She ask how he wa killed, you have to look at the body and the surrounding area to work it out, looking for entry and exit wounds, scars, dismemberment etc. It really is a good way to get the brain working and a refreshing way of splitting up the the furious game play.

The Extra modes that come with the game are pretty much there for fun. The BloodShot arena is a nice touch with some cool mini games nd a good practice area. The multiplayer is alright with a handful of modes which requires you and eight buddies to sort out. Crime scene is quite a good one, where its four SCU's try and solve crimes by getting evidence while the inflentuals try and stop them. Then there's deathmatch and team deathmatch which is pretty much an onslaught of blunt objects hit everyone in a sort of mess. Overall the game is awesome, completely unique and a step up from the first installment though the multiplayer and extras feel as if there where last minute add ins. 9.7

 

Storyline

Ethan Thomas, kicked from the SCU is now homeless and acholic, until he is asked to aid the SCU on an operation to find Vanhorn. From here the story is full of twist and turns with a lot of gruesome scenes thrown in for good measure. There is no way of describing the story without spoilers so I will just say this. One of The best stories I have heard for a while in a videogame. 9.8

 

 

Summary

To finish it off , the main question is "Is it better then the first one" well the answer is definitely, this one feels a lot more dark with a story that will leave you gobsmacked and shocked! The combat is much more intuitive though the gunplay is still suffering the same stiffness from the first game. his is pone of the best mot brutal games I have ever played With the story about 10 hours on hard and the extras to keep you busy afterwards its definitely worth £40.

 

Overall Rating: 9.8

 

sorry about spelling errors will corect them fter supper, my keboard is really dodge becuase its low on battery

[Voodoo]

Nice review. I had allot of fun with this game. The story was just as dark and atmospheric as the first one. I did feel that the firearm sections detracted a bit from the feeling of urgency that a survival horror game should have and the combos were a bit arcadey (it's a word!), but all in all it was really top notch for the genre.

 

The MP was a total clusterf*ck, though. We gave it a fair shot one night but regardless of the game's aspirations for it's MP modes, gameplay usually just boiled down to a massive smash and bash fest. It was fun for awhile but it's just not something I can see myself coming back too over and over. The fighting gets pretty sloppy when there's a whole room full of players. It eventually comes down to charging into the mosh with a toilet seat or similar and whacking someone on the back of the head with it - fun for an hour or so then... meh. All I ever asked of the game was dark and twisted survival horror creepiness, though and with the lights down in the middle of the night it provided just that.

[Napalm Jason]

Bloodshot is awesome. The combat feels so brutal and realistic.

[AlianAnt]

I thought it was great until the museum level, and then it was all downhill after that for all kinds of reasons.

 

I'm starting this whole thing off with a spoiler, so if you haven't played yet, don't roll over, as I'm sure I'll grind your gears if you haven't beaten the second game, or even the first.

 

First off, last I checked, I blew SKX's dome away with my f*cking nine. Period. I know theres the other part of that where you let him live, but then he blows himself away. Last I checked bullet + head = not alive anymore. Guess SKX was so insane that if he didn't believe bullets were real, they can't hurt him. That's my only explanation. Then all of the sudden, in true the-bad-guy-opens-his-eyes-at-the-end fashion... HES BACK! Cool, he was... wait.... he died! I f*cking saw it myself!

 

Then there was the whole investigation crap. Use your powers of deduction Sherlock Holmes style and figure a buncha sh*t out. It was cool at first, until it started to get really difficult, and what really pissed me off was when theres that critical item you have to zoom into and investigate or else you can't continue, like that f*cking police hat on the chair at the beginning. I walked around FOREVER trying to figure out what to do. Then I finally saw the police cap, which I mistook as more random garbage like in the rest of the level.

 

There was also that snow level (which f*cking rocked, I might add, excluding the bit I'm about to talk about, I really didn't see a giant f*cking human eating bear coming, and when that bitch walked into the room the first time my mouth literally dropped wide open) where theres that severed arm on the ground and you have to identify when the guy died by his wrist watch. I entered in everything, and was positive I'd gotten everything right, and then it's all "POOR". WHAT THE f*ck?! Maybe I missed something, but it exemplifies the problem with this system: how the f*ck am I supposed to know what the difference between a bare or white wire, 12:01 or 00:01 on an analogue clock, an entrance or exit wound, and a splatter or outward blood pattern is? I can't just look and go "Oh, thats it!" Each one of those instances were times I had to go back because I wanted my f*cking gold level rewards that weren't at least a little obvious. It was like a 50/50 chance.

 

Then theres the whole give-you-a-firearm-every-ten-seconds thing. Is it me or is melee combat the entire thing that makes the Condemned games? I remember in the first game when you found a gun it was a gigantic f*cking deal because it meant you could mow the next guy or two down like they were Joe Mcf*cked™. But because theres so many more guns in the second game, and entire levels of just gun-play, it lost it's bight. But maybe I'm the only one that feels that way about that.

 

But back to the story. Who's the black guy who was in the helicopter at the end? I've seen him around, but I don't know his name, and the game seems to make a big deal about him being a good guy. Also, I didn't learn the director guy's name until he was on that table all f*cked up. And when did Dorland suddenly become the main bad guy? Wasn't that SKX? Wait, didn't he say something about protecting me? But didn't he also say he couldn't wait to cut me open? What was up with those dolls? How come no one noticed all these machines and blue tubes in this gigantic f*cking junkyard? How come no one seems to have noticed the sonic devices in the city? Who is the Magic Man, and why does Ethan and Rosa even know of his existence? WHY IS MY GUY SUDDENLY ABLE TO SCREAM AND BLOW PEOPLES HEADS OFF WITH THAT? WHY DOES DORLAND SUDDENLY HAVE METAL PEGS ALL OVER HIS BODY?!

 

The was me the entire last half of the game. It felt like there were entire levels missing.

 

Ya know, I've been typing for a while now, so I'm not gonna get into the level design. But I was really disappointed with Condemned 2, especially after it's great start. Oh, well....

Edited April 13, 2008 by AlianAnt

[Grandthefter]

Haven't finished it yet but in my eyes it's no where close to the awesomeness that had me cowering away in the dark that was the first condemned. They've focused too much on combat and taken away what makes condemned a condemned game, but thats just my opinion from someone who's only got to the black lake/snowy place level

[Napalm Jason]

 

A whol'otta stupid f*cking whining.

Dude, what you pointed out weren't legitimate concerns. That was just a whole lot of f*cking bitching. You're bitching about stuff that was SUPPOSED to be a bit of a guess. It's actually not that hard to tell between an entrance would, an exit wound and an exit would blood splatter. You don't have to be some sort of scientist to understand that sh*t.

 

Oh yeah and for the wires, OH MY GOD SO YOU HAD TO DO SOME THINKING JESUS CHRIST SUE MONOLITH. Jesus, I had to do a little bit of deductive matching to figure out the wirings. Once you figure out which wires they were, and it's kind of hard not to with things such as THIN WIRE/FAT WIRE/STRIPED WIRE, you'd honestly have to be f*ckING BLIND to not be able to look at clearly defined wires and determine what three wires from the list of six that needed to be used.

 

You obviously don't like challenging games, even though the puzzles in Bloodshot weren't all that challenging in the first place.

 

All I can ask is, did you at least identify that the man was a cop or did you happen to f*ck that question up to? With all of the bitching you just did it sounds like you never even played the game.

[AlianAnt]

Challenging? Fallout is challenging. Guess-the-wire is not. I didn't say I got stumped, I implied that if I wanted to play a guessing game, I'd go on moolah.com. There was no thinking involved; only guessing. This isn't 1996. We've progressed past stuff like escort missions, can't-finish-the-level-because-you-made-a-simple-mistake, and guessing games. It does nothing but lead to frustration. And no jump button? When was the last time you were blocked by a shelf on the ground?

 

The graphics were great, the (melee) combat was fantastic, there were some awesome moments in the game (like when that bear walks out around the corner and you have to haul ass, I sh*t a brick), but about half way through I found myself liking the game less and less. I mean, really, did you not once say during the junk yard level at the end "How has everyone missed all these big glowing sound-emitting things?" I mean, really. It's like a different guy came in and designed and wrote the story to the second half of the game.

 

All I was saying was that I was really excited about it, and walked away disappointed. Theres no need to rip me to shreds because I disagree with you.

Edited April 16, 2008 by AlianAnt

[Voodoo]

 

Annoying over-dramatic diatribe.

You might want to yank those panties out of your minge before you chafe.

 

So he was disappointed. Big f*ckin' deal.

 

 

 

[Napalm Jason]

I wasn't ripping on him because he was "disappointed" or "didn't like the game". I was ripping on him because not everything was a "guessing game". Like I mentioned before, the wire placing was based on basic, simple, deductive matching. If you couldn't figure that out, then no wonder you hated the "guessing". There was very little "guessing" involved in that. You find the three easily described wires from the list, and as I mentioned before, it's not hard when your wires say something like FAT, STRIPED and THIN. I mean really dude, did you honestly just sit there and guess for ten minutes? That's kind of funny. If you stepped back for a second and realized there was a simple way to solve the puzzle, maybe you wouldn't be so whiny. I'm not sure why you didn't mention guess-the-factory-machines. Because honestly, that was the only one that was 100% guessing.

 

About the jump button thing... there was no reason for you to have a jump button. You didn't need to jump over anything. I mean, sure you could've totally hopped the couch that blocked the hallway instead if taking two seconds to just go through the room. Were the context sensitive moves not enough? I thought those were pretty intuitive. Jump buttons, in the context of you only being able to have limited movement, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If you could just "jump over everything", you'd be complaining about the lack of atmosphere because the game doesn't make you feel "scared" if you can just run and hop through the level.

 

However, I will at least give you credit towards the end. I didn't play the first Condemned, but I knew a little bit about the story. I was a little confused as to what was going on in the end.

 

I know you know this even if you don't want to admit it, but there WERE parts in this game that were supposed to be f*cked up and not make a whole lot of sense. The whole thing with the dolls and that freaky robotic bitch who there lollipop saws at you? That wasn't supposed to make sense. Did you get freaked out? Probably. I sure as hell did. That's like questioning why Ethan was seeing that f*cked up black sludge instead of just having blurry vision and sh*t. It's just part of the story. Take it or leave it.

 

I see you've determined that this game isn't your bag, but please, don't knock it what it does right, and especially for moot sh*t like "not having a jump button".

[Vince_ThePhoenix]

Okay so the first game definitely scared the hell out of me yet was brilliant at the same time, this one best do the same. Anybody else looking foreward to this? I would think Lethal is.

 

 

 

 

[Voodoo]

Can't argue with Yahtzee. I'm usually laughing too hard anyway.

 

 

 

[AlianAnt]

 

[the bit about the weir guessing thingie]

Actually, after a try or two I said to myself "Theres gotta be a clue around here somewhere." So I decided to follow the large cable on the wall around to the other side of the elevator, which displayed a fully wired box. So I repeated the order a few times (Which, if I remember properly was, from top to bottom, striped wire, thick wire, and what was actually bare wire), and walked back over to the other side.

 

However, the last wire, the bare one, was colored white. "White wire" was an option in the list. Last I checked, bare wires were usually copper. This wire, being white, fit in the 'white wire' category. So I entered the options in in order, top to bottom, and it said "GOOD" or "GREAT", whichever was the only level below "PERFECT". So I thought that maybe this was because I just had to mirror the order from the example one on the other side of the elevator. So I tried that and got "POOR". I checked the order and tried the mirror again. "POOR". So I thought maybe the first time I accidentally hit the wrong one and didn't notice. Tried that "GOOD" (or was it "GREAT"?). At that point I started to get a bit angry that it wasn't working, as I was certain I'd entered it all in right, both ways.

 

It was about 5am on a school morning when I was doing this (as I was on a really messed up schedule at the time), so I decided to get my clothes I had put in the dryer earlier, and take a shower. While I was taking a shower, I decided that maybe I should try the bare wire option for the white wire, although at the time, this seemed absurd as I was pretty damn sure bare electrical wires were copper.

 

So once I'd gotten back to my game, I tried that out and what-do-ya-know: "PERFECT" and the elevator starts up again. Without the shower, it was probably five or ten minutes of pure and complete frustration. I dunno. It probably didn't affect you, maybe you don't think the same way I do. But it seems pretty logical to me to not put "white weir" and "bare weir" in the list, color what is actually a bare weir white, and tell the player to figure it out when theres also several other ways you could be making mistakes.

 

As I said, this wasn't the only problem for me. There were much bigger complaints that I had that had nothing to do with the investigation stuff. And for the record, I REALLY REALLY hate the push-A-to-do-stuff moments, as for some reason, they completely ripped me out of the game every time. The most immersive game I've ever played, Half-Life 2, had the player character jumping and crouching in mid-freakin' air to land in a small pipe. I don't know why, but that felt more real to me than the, what I will call, A-sequences in Condemned 2, and I know why. Because you stop playing the game, and the game starts playing itself. I know how to get on and climb a damn ladder. I know how to shimmy through two objects that are close together. When theres some maniac behind me with a very large pipe, you're damn right I'd jump a couch in a hallway, not run around it. It's not moot when it rips you from the atmosphere.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the game, I really am. I didn't. Well, I did for a while, but, yeah, we've gone over this. Point is: I was disappointed with what could have been one of my favorite games. It's happened before, and I'm sure it'll happen again (*COUGH*MGS2*COUGH*). Luckily a third game seems to be coming along and the third times the charm (*COUGH*MGS3*COUGH*).

[Napalm Jason]

 

[the bit about the weir guessing thingie]

The bit about the wire thingie and a shower and stuff.

Well, I am not going to rip on you anymore, and I can accept the fact that your complaints were legitimate now that you emphasized a bit on it. I'm sorry I jumped all over your sh*t so quick. It's just when I originally played this game I never experienced such an intense experience on the 360 (yet), so that's why I went apesh*t, haha. We shall agree to disagree.

 

We cool?

[Transparanoia]

I was really pumped to play this game. I had the atmosphere all how it should have been. Popped it in at 10 P.M. It was pitch black in my room, and I got right into it. And, it worked, I f*cking sh*t my pants more than once playing through this game. There were plenty of those sort of moments, but other than a decent atmosphere (which didn't last the whole game, IMO) and some top quality melee combat, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth when I stopped playing it. Here's why.

 

Unlike AlianAnt, I found the investigations were an interesting part of the game and did a decent job of stopping the action, letting the player calm down and use the ol' mind. I'm a fan of shows like CSI, so I was looking pretty much everywhere when it came to looking for clues. As fun as it was, however, I found a few problems. One being the font for all on-screen selections. I couldn't read the f*cker. It was really small and often blurry. This could have been because I was playing in standard definition, but it shouldn't have been an issue regardless. Also, there were a few pieces of evidence I couldn't read. The two main offenders are in the lodge level. The watch on the severed arm, and the wallet on the first dead guy you see. I couldn't read either so I was just guessing at that point. That pissed me off a fair bit. I can live with it because of the other, tighter ares of the investigating, but it was annoying nonetheless.

 

Another thing I wasn't too happy about was all the gunplay. That really ruined a lot of the game for me. I felt too powerful when I had a gun in my hand and it really ruined the atmosphere. The story was also really average, especially when compared to the first game. I thought it started alright, but it was all downhill from there.

 

If I had to score the game I would probably give it somewhere between a 7 and 8. I had high hopes for this game but it just didn't pull it off.

[DeeperRed]

I didn't really want to bring this up again but how come it hasn't been added to reviews. I thouught we were trying to hit over 300 ?

[Seddo]

Well the two members that were running the reviews topic haven't been to active in recent months outside of the gang forum by the looks of it and one just seems to be browsing by the looks of their profiles.

 

Plus there haven't been many review topics made because they get ignored like yours. The topic needs a new owner to get things up and running again by the looks of it.